Christmas Festivities

I just love this time of year for so many reasons. This has been a special holiday season because Claire seems to be "getting it" for the first time. Last night she asked us to play Mary and Joseph and assigned us all parts: Claire was Mary, Jacob was Joseph, I was a sheep, and Allan was a king, her new little teddy bear was baby Jesus. It was so cute. She even draped a blanket over her and Jacob and said they were "wearing their hoods just like in the story". We have made sure that she knows that Jesus' birthday is the real reason for Christmas, but it is also fun to ask Santa for gifts and we have already planned out what cookies and milk we will leave out on our Christmas Eve (which is actually going to be this Friday night since we will be out of town on actual Christmas). We wrote Santa and asked him if there was any way he could come to our house a little early and he kindly said sure ;)

I have tried to do as many Christmas-y things this month as possible. This weekend was so fun since we hit up a few local events and even met up with some friends on Sunday afternoon for a walk around the arboretum.

Saturday afternoon we made our first trip to a local church that puts on a live nativity. It was really neat. We rode the hay ride tour through all the main scenes, then went to their petting zoo, and finished up with cookies and hot cider and cocoa. Claire LOVED seeing all the real animals and thought the scene of Mary being woken up by an angel was really funny. Jacob was just happy to be all cuddled up in the carrier looking cute.

After we saw the nativity we headed across the street to a little festival even though we were short on time. Claire had to choose which line she wanted to wait in, Santa or the Boogie Woogie Choo Choo, she chose the train. She did not quite understand that she was making an either/or choice and was really sad when we didn't have time to go see Santa. Jacob was in rare form and had a blast playing with Allan. He would squeal at the top of his lungs and then give a big belly laugh. He was the hit of the line...what can I say, we have some cute kids ;)

Sunday we met up with some of our new friends at the Arboretum. It was a beautiful day to be outside. I was a little bummed that once we paid to get inside we found out that all the activities cost even more money, but we had fun walking and talking anyway. Once again Claire missed out on her Santa opportunity. One of the many funny things she said when we were heading over yesterday was "will Santa be there and not baby Jesus? I really just want to see Santa this time." It was also fun to revisit the bench where Allan asked me to marry him. We have started a tradition of going back to take a picture on it after we add a kid to the family (see family picture above).

We ended the weekend with our small group Christmas party at our house and although it was loud and chaotic with all the kids a babysitter that was a no show we had a good time. We played games and had good food. It is so great to be building relationships with so many great people.

What a great weekend! The rest of the month is going to be just as fun I think and that makes me happy.